US embassy to employ Putin spy boss’s security company

A New York March for Truth rally in June calls for investigation into Russian ties to President Trump and his administrationEduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

The United States is to employ a security company founded by the former KGB boss of President Putin to protect its embassy in Moscow.

In a surprising choice, the State Department confirmed that it had handed the $2.8 million contract to Elite Security Holding, a company set up by Viktor Budanov, who retired as a major-general in Russia’s foreign intelligence service in 1992. Mr Budanov earlier served in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB as a counterespionage officer.

In interviews, he has said that he worked with Kim Philby, the British double agent for the Soviet Union, and that between 1987 and 1991 he was based at KGB headquarters in East Germany, where one of his subordinates was Mr Putin.